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Oh man, I use 3 or 4 pipes to filter various RSS feeds. Ugh. Good suggestions for replacements (especially those that don't require my own server) would be much

Oh man, I use 3 or 4 pipes to filter various RSS feeds. Ugh. Good suggestions for replacements (especially those that don't require my own server) would be much appreciated.

maxerickson 11y ago
Are they also shutting down YQL? I think YQL queries can do everything pipes can, you just have to write little scripts to do it instead of the UI. Still has the Yahoo problem, but it might be the easiest short term.
- wsc981 11y ago
  Still has the Yahoo problem, but it might be the easiest short term. The Yahoo problem being that it might be shutdown in the near future?
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  Maybe they're focusing on YQL instead, if it does offer similar functionality.
- spullara 11y ago
  My understanding is that YQL is being used as the middleware between services internally. Will probably not be shut down, but they could shut off the publicly accessible one. One thing not mentioned in this thread is that Pipes 2.0 was a rewrite from the original Pipes which was written in Perl. We ported it to the same engine that powers YQL. As for why shut down Pipes if it shares infrastructure with YQL? Probably because usage is mostly RSS crawlers that no one looks at anymore.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  YQL queries can do everything pipes can, you just have to write little scripts to do it instead of the UI Argh! The UI was the innovative part. The whole point of something like this is that you don't have to learn a bunch of syntax - when you add a module, it tells you what sort of data it needs to know (such as a URL or...) and when you connect modules together it tells you what sort of inputs and outputs are available. This allows you to focus on the actual problem domain instead of the morphology of the query language, which is not important to the user. I keep encountering this attitude among programmers - 'I type code all day, so why don't you want to do the same thing?' If people wanted to type stuff all the time the command line would still rule, but the majority of people prefer graphic user interfaces because they don't want to write code, they want to make selections from available options and use the computer to take care of the plumbing. This is a Good Thing. It's easier, more fun, and yields greater productivity, for the same reason that handing someone a box of Lego is better than handing them a few blocks of wood and a set of carving tools. The existence of Lego hasn't led to a collapse of sculpture or mechanical engineering. On the contrary, the simplicity, consistency, and interoperability of the different components has made a massive creative, educational, and commercial success. I don't mean this as a hit on you personally, but I find comments like the above frustrating. Imagine you went into a police station to report the disappearance of your bicycle and the person behind the desk shrugged and said 'you're still able to run around on your legs, what's the problem? Your bicycle may have allowed you to go faster down the street but it's not like you could ride it up and down stairs so you should be happy with walking on your feet.' The problem is the loss of a tool that offered substantial efficiencies on some common tasks even though it wasn't ideal for every situation. You'd probably be equally pissed off if your favorite high level language went away and you were told you could just go back to writing assembler. I personally love doing things in assembler because it makes me feel smart but that doesn't mean it's better than high level languages.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that YQL was equivalent to Pipes, just that it might be able to replace the functionality. Which is why I made sure to mention the significant difference...
- nekitamo 11y ago
  I get the impression that YQL is suffering from the same kind of neglect Pipes did. It was down multiple times a week for me, and I had to move to other solutions.
Concours 11y ago
Suggestion for your use case: http://www.feedsapi.com http://www.feedsapi.com , supports keywords and RegEx filtering among other things.
- chrisamiller 11y ago
  Thanks. Guess I should have specified "preferably free" too :)

Oh man, I use 3 or 4 pipes to filter various RSS feeds. Ugh. Good suggestions for replacements (especially those that don't require my own server) would be much appreciated.

maxerickson 11y ago

Are they also shutting down YQL? I think YQL queries can do everything pipes can, you just have to write little scripts to do it instead of the UI. Still has the Yahoo problem, but it might be the easiest short term.

wsc981 11y ago
Still has the Yahoo problem, but it might be the easiest short term. The Yahoo problem being that it might be shutdown in the near future?
giancarlostoro 11y ago
Maybe they're focusing on YQL instead, if it does offer similar functionality.
spullara 11y ago
My understanding is that YQL is being used as the middleware between services internally. Will probably not be shut down, but they could shut off the publicly accessible one. One thing not mentioned in this thread is that Pipes 2.0 was a rewrite from the original Pipes which was written in Perl. We ported it to the same engine that powers YQL. As for why shut down Pipes if it shares infrastructure with YQL? Probably because usage is mostly RSS crawlers that no one looks at anymore.
anigbrowl 11y ago
YQL queries can do everything pipes can, you just have to write little scripts to do it instead of the UI Argh! The UI was the innovative part. The whole point of something like this is that you don't have to learn a bunch of syntax - when you add a module, it tells you what sort of data it needs to know (such as a URL or...) and when you connect modules together it tells you what sort of inputs and outputs are available. This allows you to focus on the actual problem domain instead of the morphology of the query language, which is not important to the user. I keep encountering this attitude among programmers - 'I type code all day, so why don't you want to do the same thing?' If people wanted to type stuff all the time the command line would still rule, but the majority of people prefer graphic user interfaces because they don't want to write code, they want to make selections from available options and use the computer to take care of the plumbing. This is a Good Thing. It's easier, more fun, and yields greater productivity, for the same reason that handing someone a box of Lego is better than handing them a few blocks of wood and a set of carving tools. The existence of Lego hasn't led to a collapse of sculpture or mechanical engineering. On the contrary, the simplicity, consistency, and interoperability of the different components has made a massive creative, educational, and commercial success. I don't mean this as a hit on you personally, but I find comments like the above frustrating. Imagine you went into a police station to report the disappearance of your bicycle and the person behind the desk shrugged and said 'you're still able to run around on your legs, what's the problem? Your bicycle may have allowed you to go faster down the street but it's not like you could ride it up and down stairs so you should be happy with walking on your feet.' The problem is the loss of a tool that offered substantial efficiencies on some common tasks even though it wasn't ideal for every situation. You'd probably be equally pissed off if your favorite high level language went away and you were told you could just go back to writing assembler. I personally love doing things in assembler because it makes me feel smart but that doesn't mean it's better than high level languages.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that YQL was equivalent to Pipes, just that it might be able to replace the functionality. Which is why I made sure to mention the significant difference...
nekitamo 11y ago
I get the impression that YQL is suffering from the same kind of neglect Pipes did. It was down multiple times a week for me, and I had to move to other solutions.

Concours 11y ago

Suggestion for your use case: http://www.feedsapi.com http://www.feedsapi.com , supports keywords and RegEx filtering among other things.

chrisamiller 11y ago
Thanks. Guess I should have specified "preferably free" too :)